Edward Collingwood

Sir Edward Foyle Collingwood LLD (17 January 1900 – 25 October 1970) was an English mathematician and scientist. He was a member of the Eglingham branch of a prominent Northumbrian family, the son of Col. Cuthbert Collingwood of the Lancashire Fusiliers, whose family seat was at Lilburn Tower, near Wooler, Northumberland. His great grandfather was a brother of Admiral Lord Collingwood.

Life Collingwood was born at his family home, Lilburn Tower, near Wooler in Northumberland, the son of Col. Cuthbert George Collingwood and his wife, Dorothy Fawcett.

Collingwood was educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, on the Isle of Wight and at Dartmouth Royal Naval College and was commissioned into the Royal Navy. By arrangement his first service was aboard the dreadnought battleship HMS Collingwood but his naval career was cut short during World War I when in 1916 he was invalided out of the Navy following an accidental injury.

In 1918 he enrolled to study mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. His early academic results were not special and in 1922 he moved to Aberystwyth University where he became interested in complex analysis and published a paper relating to Nevanlinna's theory. He was awarded the Rayleigh Prize in 1923 and following the award of the Rouse Ball travelling scholarship in 1925 he spent a year at the University of Paris.

Collingwood returned to Cambridge and was in 1929 awarded a doctorate for a thesis entitled Contributions to the theory of integral functions.